three in the afternoon, we still haven't moved
by McMuffin
Summary: Addison and Kevin experience the worst horror imaginable to a parent, and the consequences are self-destructive, horrible, and all too analogous to her parents. They cry silently together until there are no tears left. Only silence.


Never fear, I have not abandoned all of my other shows for Robin Hood, I've just been on a bit of a RI spree... anyway, I bring thee HotCop! fic... but... well, I wrote this when I was sick last week, and my mind apparently goes to dark and twisty places when I'm sick. Apologies if it's disjointed... I wrote this on scraps of paper and scattered post-it notes which may have become out of order before I typed this - I don't think it matters, this fic is pretty disjointed on purpose. So, enough rambling from me, go forth and read. :)

I hope you like it. ♥

* * *

.x.

* * *

"_Mommy?" a soft, sleepy voice asks._

"_Yeah, sweetie?" she turns around in her seat, smiling when her daughter blinks at her sleepily._

"_We home yet?" fingers clutch onto Cuddles._

_She glances at her husband, who shrugs at her and mumbles, "An hour."_

"_Not long, carrot," she smiles at her daughter, "Want to go back to sleep?"_

"_No," a pout, of course._

"_Well do you want to play a game?"_

"_No."_

_Kevin chuckles, slowing to a stop as they approach some traffic lights. He glances at Addison who rolls her eyes at their daughter's stubborn antics._

"_What do you want to play, bub?"_

_A mischievous smile is thrown their way, "I want to sing a song!"_

"_Which song?" Addison turns around to flick through their CD collection._

"_Um," a rubbing of soft eyes, then of the plastic eyes of Cuddles, "I wanna sing along to – "_

.x.

He walks into the station, grabs a cup of coffee, heads out to the firing range, fires three rounds, heads to his office, fills out paperwork, gets another cup of coffee, fills out more paperwork, heads home. There are no missions today.

She walks into the hospital, snaps at an intern, grabs a cup of coffee, snaps at a nurse, heads to the ER, sutures, delivers a baby, grabs a cup of coffee, snaps at a nurse, delivers another baby, fills out paperwork, heads home. There are no surgeries today.

.x.

He holds her in his arms when she stumbles through the front door. She clings onto him and mutters that she hates work, it's too boring. He agrees, "There's no thrill anymore."

.x.

_The police arrive on scene first; Kevin issued an emergency from his blackberry. Maybe if Addison was able to send out a page… the ambulance would've… maybe._

_Addison's out cold._

_Cuddles falls to the floor, limp limbs no longer grasping his fluffy exterior._

.x.

She sips her wine, the rich flavor calming the burning throb in her heart. The liquid warms her body up, cools her hurt down. The glass is half empty in a minute, another sixty seconds and it's completely empty, like its drinker.

.x.

He flings the flimsy lace to the side, burying himself into the distraction. He goes through the motions, groaning his release and trying to numb himself into amnesia. For a split second he can forget, but it doesn't last.

.x.

_He holds her tiny hand in his, cold, still, lifeless._

_His wife's hand is the same, only he feels a pulse._

_.x.  
_

She pretends not to care. She doesn't care. She has work, and she has… wine. She doesn't care. He can do what he likes. She doesn't care.

.x.

He'd like if it maybe she'd give him some attention. If the women would affect her. They affect him. They take his heart and break it; shatter it into a billion tiny pieces. But they don't seem to break her. Nothing breaks her; she's just a shell; going through the motions. He feels fucking horrible but he just wants his wife to give a damn about him again.

.x.

_She doesn't leave the bedroom for days. He doesn't leave the house for weeks. They cry silently together until there are no tears left._

_Only silence._

_.x.  
_

She doesn't like driving anymore. Whenever she sees a car painted _that_ shade of blue she wants to scream. Patterns flash across her eyes, grinding metal scrapes her hearing, a child's last word buzzes in her ear. Her lips ache for comfort. She rushes home, usually. If she must go to work, she buries herself in work. If she's home… _Then_. Then she drinks.

.x.

He's been promoted. It's not the smartest thing his bosses can have done, but, they don't see him every day. They just hear about his extra hours, heroic efforts, amazing statistics. They don't hear of him sleeping around and neglecting his wife in the process. They don't see how broken he is, how little he cares.

.x.

_She can't finish her eulogy, her husband's carrying her wretched body outside of the church, fighting back his own sobs._

.x.

He unlocks the front door, calls out her name – habit, not concern that she's passed out somewhere – and gets a 'patio' in response. She's out there with two bottles of Dom. One is empty already.

"How was your day?" he asks, no longer drinking a beer as he used to when she'd drink wine. No longer giving her the foot rubs that he used to when her feet hurt.

"Fine, yours?" she's sharp with her tongue but there's a slur to her words.

"Fine," he nods, "We, uh, had this huge drug bust today."

He still attempts to get her interest. _Sometimes_. She barely nods, sipping on her wine like a lifeline. They sit in silence, balmy, irate, depressed, until Sam comes out on his balcony and they're all smiles, chatty and acting like the silence is comfortable. They have everyone fooled, and in this moment, even themselves.

.x.

She doesn't like operating on car crash victims anymore, takes her name off of the 'page in case of emergency' list, pages other doctors to assist – do all the work.

.x.

He loses touch with his old partner, Leslie. Leslie's son misses calling him 'uncle', and soon he's just 'Kevin' when he sees the three-and-seven-months old in passing.

.x.

She rarely visits the practice – Charlotte, Cooper, Violet, Sam, Amelia and some new girl are running it, while Naomi, Pete, Sheldon and the others the vaguely knows are still working at the rival practice. The group still catches up fortnightly. They put on their best smiles, seeming forced, but the others don't suspect it's as bad as it is.

.x.

_She goes to Naomi's office before they plan on going out for lunch. She sees the miracle wall – Naomi still continuing it without Dell – and bursts into tears._

.x.

If anyone paid close enough attention they'd notice that all photographs are missing from their house.

.x.

"Where's the gin?" Addison asks, wandering from the kitchen to the lounge.

He looks up from the couch, pen frozen over paperwork, "You drank it all last night."

"And you didn't buy me any?" she hisses.

"I was busy."

"Of course," she mutters.

Kevin _looks _at her for once. She's thin, hollow, "You want me to let some poor guy get shot so I could buy you gin?"

"You could've stopped to buy me gin before you went to fuck brunette number four-oh-five."

She's giving him a glare to chill him to the bone, unfortunately, he's not to chilled, "I'm only up to four-oh-four, your count's off."

"Bastard," she mutters, grabs a bottle of vodka, storms upstairs.

He sleeps on the couch, then heads out to fuck brunette number thirty-seven before his wife can awaken hung-over.

.x.

_They finally get her stuff into boxes and store it in her room. They don't go in there anymore, but they can't bear to keep it how it was. They're not ones for a memorial when they can barely manage to breathe through a memory._

.x.

Sometimes he ventures into her room. Usually he just stares at the boxes, but this time he pulls out Huggles, the matching brown rabbit to Cuddles. He holds the toy to his chest, cries, mumbles words to his daughter, is almost asleep on the soft carpet when Addison stumbles into the room.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

"Just… seeing… talking to her."

"What the fuck?" she shrieks.

"Adds – " he stands up, both thankful and upset.

"No! Why would you to this? To me?"

"To _you_? What? I can't come in here now?"

She howls in response, not really making sense. He notices the glass in her hand for the first time. _Clear_. He's sure it's not water.

"Whatever," he shrugs in response, holding onto the toy.

"You fucking bastard! You know what this room…" she flees in a blur of sobs, gulps and spilt spirits.

He falls to the floor sobbing, not just for his daughter.

"How did we get here?" he asks softly as he stands in the hallway.

She replies, "You know," and returns to emptying a fourth bottle.

He closes his eyes briefly and returns to staring at the clock, counting the seconds until she passes out.

.x.

She's long since stopped listening to his pleas to stop drinking. And he's long since stopped caring. He thinks.

He's long since stopped feeling guilty about cheating on her. And she's long since stopped noticing. She thinks.

.x.

_It's been two months to the day. She's at home, he's at work. Last month they were both at home. She drinks away their collection of rum – three bottles – and he returns home to find her passed out. When she wakes up in bed four hours later, his body lying beside her, she screams at him and resists his tries to help, claiming that this is his fault._

_He thinks she means the crash._

_She means her being drunk._

_He leaves, eyes burning with tears, and runs to find a distraction for the first time._

_Honey blonde is his distraction, red is his pain._

.x.

She still doesn't know why he first turned to cheating and not to her.

He still doesn't know why she first turned to alcohol and not to him.

They wish they'd turned to each other.

.x.

A bullet grazes his arm at work one day. A flesh wound, two weeks off work, no hospital stay. He was distracted on the field, as always. When he gets discharged he has Sam drop him home, pretending Addison's working. He forgets that Sam consults for St. Ambrose most days and knows the surgical schedule. He forgets that Sam knows Addison doesn't have any surgeries today.

Addison's pissed that he got hurt. She drinks twice as heavily. Her anger at him is strong but not for the reasons she thinks - he has to be home all the time, he can watch her more closely, he can't cheat - nor for the reasons he thinks – she won't have any freedom, he won't be able to help around home anymore.

.x.

Naomi and Sam come over one day unexpectedly. Addison's midway through her first bottle and Kevin's watching TV. Their friends seem to suspect that they're not okay butt they pull the perfect act. They have everyone fooled as always.

They're exactly who she never wanted to be.

Her parents.

.x.

When a year rolls past and it's the anniversary, they're not even speaking to each other except in the presence of others. He can't find her this day and he groans, feeling like he should just screw a random as usual… but he doesn't feel right. Something feels off… and he knows it's _her_, his wife, the love of his life… who he can't bear to hurt any longer, and who he knows is in danger.

She's not at the crash site like he'd hoped.

She's not at the hospital.

She's at Malibu Bluffs. _Her _favourite spot.

.x.

_It's a miracle she hasn't killed anyone yet, but she's not doing too many surgeries these days as the Chief of Surgery at St. Ambrose suspects she's not quite okay yet._

_He has no idea of how not quite okay yet she is._

.x.

"What the hell are you doing?" he screams, jogging over to his wife who's standing on the _other _side of the protective railing. He slows when she whirls around, startled. The wind blows her hair into her face and her red-rimmed eyes squint to focus on her husband.

"_Addison!_"

"So you're not fucking another woman for once."

"When do you care?" he shouts. It slips out. Stupid. She's on the edge of a fucking cliff and he's provoking her.

"When? I always fucking care! If you had bothered to notice!"

"Notice what? That you're always drinking? I'm surprised you even noticed the women!" Again, it slips out and he grits his teeth.

"Well I'm fucking sorry that my husband screws everyone and anyone and I drink to compensate!"

She begins to laugh bitterly and looks over at the water beyond the cliff.

"Addison," he begins softly, worried, and climbs over the railing slowly. No sudden movements.

"She's dead… she's dead and I'm an alcoholic and you're a fucking slut… and… and she's dead. All because of – "

"It's not my fault!" he interjects before she can blame him again.

Addison gasps. "What? Of course it's not!"

This time, Kevin gasps. "What?"

"It's not your fault," Addison punctuates her sentence with a hiccup.

"Y-you said… you blamed me…"

"What? Never. I don't blame you… it's… not your fault."

"Fuck," he mutters, glancing around at the eerie land. He's only two feet away from her now. She's trembling.

"I… I was wondering how we got here…" she asks softly, "When did we lose our… when did you stop caring about my drinking?"

"When did you stop caring about my sleeping around?" He fires back, but she shakes her head.

"I… didn't. It hurts, Kev," she whispers, "I have no one."

"You have me… I never stopped caring about you… or your drinking," his eyes bore into her skull.

"So how did we end up here?"

"Our daughter died," he replies somberly.

Addison gasps, "_No!_ Shut up!"

"You said it before, Addie… she died… and we… we got screwed up, hurt, fucked up…" he glances behind her at the roaring waves, "But we can be okay."

She turns to face the ocean, and he holds onto the hope that she won't jump because if she really wanted to kill herself she'd be fucking dead by now.

"No we can't," she whispers through shut ids.

"Addie!" his voice is laced with tears, "_Don't!_"

"Why not?"

"Because… I love you! And we can make it through… we can get better, I promise… I love you. I can't imagine life without you… this year's been hell – worse than hell. I've been so stupid, I won't be anymore… I'll help you, Addie. We'll talk and… we'll get through. I love you, And…" Kevin reaches out to take her hand, holding on firmly, "If you die… I die too."

Addison becomes rigid, tears spill down her face, and then she turns and jumps into his arms, sobbing.

"_She's gone… she's gone… she's gone…"_

He holds her tight, rubs her back, kisses her like it's the first and last time, cries sorrow and joy, holds her tight.

"I'm so sorry, Kev… I… I'm so sorry… for drinking… and almost… and… making you think you were to blame… and when you got shot again… I'm so sorry…"

"It's okay, it's okay… I forgive you… all that matters is you're alive – "

" - And sober."

"What?" He carries her over the railing

"I won't drink anymore."

"Okay… I love you."

"I love you too…"

They hold each other close, wail in sync as they remember their daughter's death, spend most of the night in the gravel, breathe.

.x.

They're nowhere near happy… but they're closer to happy than they are to fucked up. And the needle wavers to happy every now and then.

.x.

_She only drags herself out of bed because she didn't die during the night._

.x.

He sees a counselor once a week, she goes to AA meetings, they see a marriage counselor together, they see a grief counselor together.

.x.

_He only returns home for the hope that she's not intoxicated._

.x.

They're doing okay.

* * *

.x.

* * *

Feedback would be lovely. ♥


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